Geometry for Navigation

The principles used in navigation both on sea, land and in outer space. We look at trilateration and triangulation.

A sextant is a device which measures the angle between two points. Using these angle and knowledge of geometry we can navigate.

This year I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand various forms of navigation, primarily due to my interest in space exploration and colonization of other planets.

I have been asking myself several questions. How do you figure out where you in space when piloting a spacecraft? How do you navigate on other planets?

A lot of what we take for granted with respect to navigation, cannot be done on other planets. Venus, Mars and the Moon don’t have a magnetic field and they certainly don’t have GPS satellites. Nor do they have a good north star like Polaris.

The problem with reading most books on navigation is that they concern themselves with Earth. Many concepts become difficult to grasp in general because they are explain only in the context of Earth based navigation.

So, here I will try to explain the general concepts of navigation regardless of what planet you are on. Or you might not be on a planet at all but in outer space. We’ll do this one small step at a time without assuming much previous knowledge.

Trigonometry Crash Course